Group slams Pryor for judicial votes

Mark Pryor is under attack back home over his support for President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees.

The conservative Judicial Crisis Network is going on the air in Arkansas on Tuesday with an ad tying the vulnerable Democratic senator, who is up for reelection in 2014, to Obama’s picks to fill out the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, a bench viewed in Washington as second in importance only to the Supreme Court.

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The ad is slated to run on the same day the Senate will consider the nomination of Nina Pillard to the circuit court, a nomination the GOP is widely expected to block regardless of Pryor’s support.

Battles over judicial nominees rarely resonate outside Washington. But the commercial focuses solely on Obama’s attempt this year to fill three vacancies on the important court that arbitrates disputes between the private sector and government agencies — many of which are viewed with deep suspicion in red Arkansas. Pryor is girding for a difficult reelection challenge against Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) in a state that’s steadily became more conservative in recent years.

“Mark Pryor voted for every one of Obama’s liberal activist judges. Every single one. Now Pryor is helping Obama pack a key court with new liberal judges who will review the EPA, the IRS and agencies Obama is using to push his unconstitutional job-killing agenda,” the ad says as the names of judges Pryor has supported scroll past the screen. “When Mark Pryor rubber-stamps Obama’s liberal judges, it hurts Arkansas. Enough is enough. Tell Mark Pryor to go work for Arkansas, not Obama.”

Pryor’s campaign pushed back by noting that Pryor’s support for dozens of George W. Bush’s judicial nominees and declaring the Judicial Crisis Network one of Cotton’s “special interest pals.”

Pillard is the fourth nominee to the D.C. Circuit to be considered by the chamber this year and expected to be third rejected by the GOP, which does not believe the workload on the court requires any additional justices. Republicans voted to confirm Sri Srinivasan in May but blocked Caitlin Halligan in March, Patricia Millett in October and are almost certain to block Pillard this week and Robert Wilkins later this month.

The ad does not mention Pryor’s support for Srinivasan, who was approved 97-0. The buy behind the spot is for more than $100,000, allowing it to run frequently for two weeks in the state’s largest media market.